1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an optical disc drive for recording and reproducing information. More particularly, the present invention relates to a tray-type optical disc drive in which an optical disc is placed on a tray ejected from a drive housing and the tray is inserted into the drive housing.
2. Background Art
JP Patent Publication (Kokai) No. 2002-269961 (Patent Document 1) and JP Patent Publication (Kokai) No. 2006-24304 (Patent Document 2) disclose a conventional optical disc drive.
The optical disc drive disclosed in Patent Document 1 is intended to provide a bezel covering up a tray insertion/ejection opening of a drive housing, the bezel being easily removably fixed to a disc tray. In the optical disc drive disclosed in Patent Document 1, the bezel is engaged with the tray by a hook piece formed on the bezel engaging with a hook receiving part formed on the tray and the bezel is locked to the tray by a lock piece formed on the bezel engaging with a lock receiving part formed on the tray.
The optical disc drive disclosed in Patent Document 2 is intended to prevent the misalignment between a tray and a tray cover that occurs when an external load is applied and the deformation of the tray and the tray cover due to shock in the disc loading direction, so as to suppress difficulty in storing the tray inside a housing. The optical disc drive disclosed in Patent Document 2 includes at least the drive housing, the tray to be stored inside the drive housing or to be inserted into and ejected from the drive housing, and the tray cover provided on the tray, in which a contact fixed portion is provided on at least part of a portion where the tray is in contact with the tray cover.
The tray-type optical disc drive as described above has been gradually thinner, smaller, and lighter as electronic devices and other components mounted in the drive have been thinner, smaller, and lighter. For reducing the weight and cost, a disc tray on which an optical disc is placed and which is inserted into a drive housing is generally formed by resin molding.
For reducing the weight and cost, for example, the disc tray is formed to be thin by resin molding and has the width smaller than the outer diameter of the optical disc so that a part of the optical disc protrudes from the tray (see FIG. 3 of Patent Document 1 and FIG. 1 of Patent Document 2). The surface of the disc tray has a complicated shape with locally-thin parts and locally-thick parts corresponding to an opening and asperities provided to attach a unit mechanism including components such as an optical pickup for recording and reproducing information on the optical disc and a spindle motor for rotating the optical disc.
Such a disc tray, which is formed to be thin by resin molding and has a complicated surface shape as described above, is likely to be largely warped in initial deformation during injection molding due to difference in cooling and solidifying speed between parts caused by difference in thickness between the parts or due to difference in molding shrinkage rate between the parts.
When the disc tray is warped in the initial deformation, the position where the bezel is attached to the disc tray by engaging means is changed by the effect of the initial deformation of the disc tray, and accordingly, the disc tray cannot be accurately fitted to a tray insertion/ejection opening. Thus, the disc tray cannot be smoothly inserted into or ejected from the drive housing.
Even when the disc tray can be inserted into the drive housing, the drive performance in terms of vibration and noise during operation may be adversely affected as long as the disc tray is warped in the initial deformation in the drive housing.
An object of the present invention, which has been made to solve the above-described problems, is to provide an optical disc drive in which the inclination of a bezel attached to a disc tray and the warpage deformation of the disc tray occurred in initial deformation during molding are suppressed.